JetBlue Tells Little Girl She Can’t Use Toilet, Almost Throws Her Off Plane After She Wets Herself

It’s one thing if a passenger is denied access to a plane’s bathroom because the jet is taking off or landing, but JetBlue is having to do the “So Sorry” dance after cabin crew refused to let a little girl use the bathroom while the plane was just sitting on the tarmac — and then tried to kick her and her family off the plane when she urinated in her seat.

The 3-year-old’s mom tells CBS Boston that she and her two daughters were on a JetBlue plane traveling from NYC to Boston last week. After sitting on the tarmac for about half an hour, one daughter needed to use the toilet, so mom asked a flight attendant for permission.

“She snapped at me, ‘No sit down,’” the mom recalls.

Unable to hold it in, the youngster had an accident in her plane seat. That’s where things go from bad to weird.

Mom says she tried to clean up after her daughter, but this just led to a scolding from the flight attendant.

“And I said, ‘please give me a break. My daughter had an accident because you wouldn’t let me take her to the bathroom. After I clean it up I will sit down,’” she tells CBS. “She turned around and reported it to the pilot.”

As anyone who reads Consumerist knows, a complaint from a flight attendant is all it takes for a pilot to decide that a passenger needs to be removed. And shortly after the mom’s confrontation with the attendant, the pilot announced that the plane would be heading back to the gate, telling everyone on board there was a noncompliant passenger who needed to be handed over to airport security.

Jennifer Devereaux says she had a nightmarish experience earlier this week while traveling with her two daughters on board JetBlue flight 518 from New York to Boston.

In a rare instance of good luck, an off-duty pilot seated near the mom was able to intervene on her behalf and convince the crew to let the family remain on board

“I am so thankful for him and other passengers sticking up for my family’s defense,” says the mom, who sent off a complaint to JetBlue in the hopes of getting an apology.

“It wasn’t about bad customer service,” she said, “it was about bad human decency. My daughter was sitting in a pool of urine and I couldn’t do anything about it.”

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My knee jerk reaction is against the inflexible flight attendant, but her reaction could have been from past experiences of being reprimanded for being a human and giving a customer a little leeway. It’s a problem in the structure of managers rather than leaders that has developed where people aren’t allowed to think for themselves and determine the best course of action given company policy, legal liability, and extenuating circumstances. Instead so many have to follow what they’re told to the letter, leaving no room for compassion.

Agreed. With a issue that embarrassing at minimum they should have received a refund for that flight. 50 dollars and 5,000 to a charity (that Jet Blue will then get a tax break because of) is insulting. I doubt it was a 50 dollar flight either.